Not even authorities' confirmation that suspected mail bomber Cesar Sayoc owned a van covered in pro-Trump stickers is enough to convince some that this isn't all just a "false flag" operation.
Far-right activist and Trump supporter Laura Loomer on Twitter Friday wondered aloud why the suspected bomber's van, which the FBI seized Friday, looks "brand new." Sayoc's van was covered in pro-Trump stickers, including some that depicted crosshairs over prominent Democrats like Hillary Clinton. But Loomer dismissed this by contending the stickers seemed to be "printed yesterday," implying a wild conspiracy is afoot. In another tweet, she sarcastically asked for "nature-proof Trump stickers" and questioned why the ones on the van weren't damaged in Hurricane Michael.
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh made a similarly wild argument on his show Friday, using the fact that the stickers aren't faded from sunlight as "evidence" that this is all a ruse, The New York Times' Trip Gabriel reports. This theory is despite Sayoc's apparent longstanding social media profiles, that are reportedly full of right-wing conspiracy theories, threats against Democrats, and videos taken at Trump rallies. Sayoc's fingerprints were discovered on one of the pipe bombs, authorities said. The "false flag" theory is also in spite of the fact that numerous Twitter users have posted pictures of the van covered in the same stickers that they say were taken up to a year ago.
Many in the conservative media over the past few days have been floating conspiracy theories that a Democrat was responsible for the attempted attacks or that the entire thing was a hoax. Limbaugh previously suggested that it would "make a lot of sense for a Democrat operative or Democrat-inculcated lunatic to do it." FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a news conference Friday afternoon that the pipe bombs were "not hoax devices," and Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the suspect "appears to be a partisan." Brendan Morrow
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has responded to criticism of her time as Minneapolis' top prosecutor.
Before she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, Klobuchar was the Hennepin County attorney in Minnesota, in charge of prosecution for the state's most populous county. Reports have indicated Klobuchar did not go after numerous police officers who shot civilians, and when MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell asked her about that on Friday, Klobuchar described her decisions as routine procedure, but also expressed regret for how she handled those cases.
"When I was county attorney, cases we had involving officer-involved shootings went to a grand jury. I think that was wrong now," Klobuchar said. "It would have been much better if I took responsibility and looked at cases and made a decision myself." Still, Klobuchar maintained that "we did not blow off these cases. We brought them to a grand jury, presented the evidence for a potential criminal prosecution, and the grand jury would come back with the decision."
Klobuchar also addressed a 2006 shooting that involved former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was arrested Friday after kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, who later died. Klobuchar was elected to the Senate a week after Chauvin was implicated in the shooting of a suspect who was allegedly attacking police, and left her attorney position just a few months into an investigation into the incident. She said it's "absolutely false" that she declined to prosecute the case involving Chauvin, describing it as a case handled by her successor that a grand jury later declined to prosecute.
Klobuchar went on to call for "systematic change" following Floyd's death both in Minnesota and "across the country." Kathryn Krawczyk
Ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been arrested in relation to the death of George Floyd, Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington announced Friday. Chauvin is the officer who was filmed kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly 10 minutes as Floyd protested "I can't breathe;" he was fired from the department earlier this week.
According to KARE 11, the local NBC affiliate, Chauvin's charging decision has not yet been made. Nevertheless, Harrington called Floyd's death a "murder," explaining "that's what it looked like to me … I'm just calling it what I see at that point." The nation has been rocked by protests since Floyd's death, with many of the protesters demanding justice and expressing anger that the officers involved had not yet faced legal repercussions.
Chauvin had at least 10 conduct complaints during his 19-year tenure before he was fired. In particular, he was involved in the shooting death of a man who had stabbed other people before attacking police, as well as some other undisclosed complaints. Additionally, he was placed on leave when he and other officers shot and wounded a Native American man in 2011. Jeva Lange
Disney's story of a rabbit and a fox recognizing and overcoming police bias was apparently used to educate human police officers.
More specifically, St. Paul, Minnesota's police force — which has been pulled into the protests in neighboring Minneapolis — watched Zootopia a few years ago as part of its annual anti-bias training. The animated movie specifically covers discrimination against a young police officer and suspects based on their species, but many officers "never saw the parallels with real life" until they watched it in training, Sgt. Amanda Heu told local station Fox 9 back in 2017.
Zootopia tells the story of the first rabbit to join the animal-run city of Zootopia's police department. She's placed on parking duty and doubted because of her species, but also discriminates against a fox con artist because of his, with nods to human race relations — the fox plays with a sheep's "hair," for instance — along the way.
"When you see the story, it has bias and prejudice woven throughout," Hua said at the time. She specifically pointed to a moment where the fox notes "if the world is only going to see a fox as shifty and untrustworthy, there's no point in trying to be anything else," saying "it boiled down the psychological construct that perpetuates discrimination and prejudice in America." But because the movie used animals instead of humans, officers "could learn from it without being judged," Hua said.
At the time, St. Paul was considering passing the Zootopia training idea on to other departments. Read more at how the Zootopia training went down at Fox 9. Kathryn Krawczyk
You know what's less cool than a billion dollars? "Inflating" the success of your business for years, as Forbes claims Kylie Jenner has done.
Forbes declared Jenner the youngest self-made billionaire ever last year, but it's now offering an update: actually, now she's not a billionaire at all, self-made or otherwise. The outlet on Friday concluded that Jenner's business is, it turns out, "significantly smaller, and less profitable, than the family has spent years leading the cosmetics industry and media outlets, including Forbes, to believe."
The report describes how Jenner publicists showed Forbes tax returns demonstrating the unbelievable growth of her company, Kylie Cosmetics, and showing $307 million in revenue in 2016. The documents were apparently a little too unbelievable, in fact; the outlet describes the numbers the Jenners provided as "hard to believe" and writes that filings later showed there's "virtually no way" they were accurate.
"If Kylie Cosmetics did $125 million in sales in 2018, how could it have done $307 million in 2016 (as the company's supposed tax returns state) or $330 million in 2017?" Forbes asks.
The answer? While the authors say they can't "prove" it, they suspect the documents they were provided with were fake and suggest her "business was never that big to begin with, and the Jenners have lied about it every year since 2016 — including having their accountant draft tax returns with false numbers — to help juice Forbes' estimates of Kylie's earnings and net worth."
Plus, Forbes also believes Jenner's profits are lower than previously thought, and given these revelations, in addition to bringing the effects of the coronavirus pandemic into account, it now estimates she's not a billionaire and is worth "just under $900 million" — which, you know, still isn't too shabby.
Read the full report, which we can only hope someone is optioning the rights to for an All the President's Men style investigative journalism thriller, at Forbes. Brendan Morrow